The Anthropic Principle A Universe Built For Man

The Copernican Principle states that humankind is an insignificant assemblage of chemical scum living on an accidental planet in a suburb of a purposeless universe. Many prominent scientists, including Nobel laureate physicists, have questioned this scurrilous principle, which has led physicists to propose the Anthropic Principle. This principle posits a purposeful link between the structure of the universe and the existence of humankind and its specialness. The numerous features of the universe are so freakishly fine-tuned for the existence of intelligent life that physicists are beginning to come to grips with the notion that our universe is profoundly purposeful and that there is a powerful and incredibly intelligent Mind behind it all.

Long awaited proceedings of an important conference on the anthropic prininciple.

"The Anthropic Principle maintains that the construction of the world, as given through the laws of nature and its evolution, is judged by whether or not it could enable the evolution of intelligence. Turned backwards, the Anthropic Principle sheds light on the role of man--or any extraterrestrial life--in the universe. This book surveys the properties needed to allow life to exist and supports the view that only an extremely narrow range of possible universes may prosper with observers. Hence, our universe may be seen as quite unique by our very existence."--Back cover.

Investigates the history of philosophic thought concerning the question of design and mankind's place in the universe. The modern collection of ideas known as the "anthropic cosmological principle" asserts that there is a deep connection between intelligent life and the physical universe.

Anthropic Bias explores how to reason when you suspect that your evidence is biased by "observation selection effects"--that is, evidence that has been filtered by the precondition that there be some suitably positioned observer to "have" the evidence. This conundrum--sometimes alluded to as "the anthropic principle," "self-locating belief," or "indexical information"--turns out to be a surprisingly perplexing and intellectually stimulating challenge, one abounding with important implications for many areas in science and philosophy. There are the philosophical thought experiments and paradoxes: the Doomsday Argument; Sleeping Beauty; the Presumptuous Philosopher; Adam & Eve; the Absent-Minded Driver; the Shooting Room. And there are the applications in contemporary science: cosmology ("How many universes are there?", "Why does the universe appear fine-tuned for life?"); evolutionary theory ("How improbable was the evolution of intelligent life on our planet?"); the problem of time's arrow ("Can it be given a thermodynamic explanation?"); quantum physics ("How can the many-worlds theory be tested?"); game-theory problems with imperfect recall ("How to model them?"); even traffic analysis ("Why is the 'next lane' faster?"). Anthropic Bias argues that the same principles are at work across all these domains. And it offers a synthesis: a mathematically explicit theory of observation selection effects that attempts to meet scientific needs while steering clear of philosophical paradox.

A vibration theory has been brought out with a fusion of the doctrines of the Vedantic virbration, the Saiva vibration and modern physics. A confluence of the concepts of non-dualistic Vedanta, Kashmiri Saiva monism, cosmology, astrophysics, superstring theory, relativity theory and quantum mechanics is clearly visible in the book.

And Man Created God presents a new theory of mytho-empiricism based on the mythological concepts of Claude Lévi-Strauss and the structuralism of Jeanne Piaget. The whole nature of mythogenes as the creative force linking history and transcendence is then elucidated. The corpus of myths in the books of Genesis and Exodus are presented in a new light and then compared with the Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Greek mythologies to highlight the Judaic myths with the pagan contrast.